Photo booths, over the past few years have become an essential to parties. The first time I put one together was last July for my parents 25th wedding anniversary that I planned for them. I had researched options and knew that renting one was out of the question given the cost. But I knew there was an alternative and one that involved an iPad. The iPad app I found and love is called Pocketbooth and was $1.99. The best thing about the app is that there is instant access to the photo for the guest, because they can email it to themselves right after taking it (granted you have wifi or data on the iPad).
Equipment
I researched options and figured there had to be an iPad mount for a tripod. And I found one on Amazon and borrowed a tripod from Christina's boo, Keith. Be sure the tripod is sturdy and will not be bumped because it will be holding the iPad.
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| Christina having a grand ol' time in the photo booth |
Set-up
Be sure to set up your photo booth slightly out of the way of the main party but still visible so guests don't forget to snap pictures! You need to allow 5-7 feet clearance to set up the tripod and backdrop visibility.
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| The entrance of our engagement party photo booth, that we almost had completely enclosed. |
Backdrops can be made specific for each event or even just use a solid color backdrop like a standard photo booth would have. The tea and social backdrop was flowers, my parent's anniversary party backdrop was a 25 made out of black and white photos.
Lighting
Lighting is easy if your event takes place during the day, just be sure there are no sun spots coming through trees, otherwise they burnout the image. For mine and John's engagement party we used a friend's LED lights. We are lacking in lighting options of our own, but definitely need to research getting some, like these.
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| John setting up our engagement party photo booth |
Personally, I don't really like props– in a real photobooth you wouldn't have props! But everyone else loves props. For our Halloween Movie Night, Christina printed this round up found on Be Spoke Bride and used spray adhesive to mount them on foam board so we can keep them and reuse them. It takes some work to cut them all out with an exacto knife, but definitely worth it if you plan on reusing them. We have also made event specific props, like thought bubbles painted with "Hi", "I love DIT&O" and our insta and twitter username "@helloDITO".
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| Caitlin and her momma in the Tea and Social photo booth |
Printing
The best thing about a photo booth? Like a polaroid camera is the instant gratification of having a keepsake from that moment in time, the rectangular 4 image printed picture. The iPad doesn't have the capability unfortunately. To print the photo strips, I put 6 strips on an 8x10 and had them printed at Walgreens and cut them.
What's next for our photo booth? I would really like to build (have John build) a PVC pipe structure to enclose our set up and have it be private! Something like this or just this PVC frame to hold a backdrop. This is definitely a cheap alternative to renting something for a party. But I do want to know any other ideas out there and continue researching for a good set up for the wedding next year.
–Karissa
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